Winchester Vets vs Petersfield Vets

With the hottest 1st October in 150 years, the weather and pitch conditions were more conducive for a 7’s tournament rather than a good old veteran’s game. This turned into a game of two-halves.
On arrival at a sunny Winchester, the home side notified Petersfield that they were short of players. After consultation with the referee, and in the spirit of rugby, Petersfield offered Winchester a couple of players and the game was on.

Straight from the kick-off, both teams decided to play an open game, with both sides creating consistent phases of play through forwards and backs. It was, though, Winchester whose play was reaping the points advantage, mainly through Petersfield mistakes in both poor handling and kicking out of hand.

It was from the kicking mistakes, that the referee correctly penalised Petersfield for offsides and killing the ball at ruck time. From the quick tap penalties, Winchester scored two tries in quick succession as their backs drew their opposite number with their wingers scoring under the posts.

With 14-0 points down, this seemed to galvanise Petersfield, with the forwards, especially Brooker, Ray and Hawkins, and scrum-half Joe Pigott, punching holes through the home team’s defence. Within the final 10 minutes of the first half, this pressure told with two unconverted tries through Hawkins and Pigott. After the second Petersfield try, from the Winchester kick-off, there was again a lapse of concentration in the away teams defence and a fine move through Winchester hands resulted in an unconverted try out wide.

With the teams turning around at half time with Winchester 19-10 up, the half-time break seemed to change the Petersfield playing style with forwards and backs supporting each other in numbers rather than ones or twos. With, again, man of the match Chris Brooker outstanding in the loose, the tries began to appear. Firstly, Hawkins, after an unselfish pass by Pigott, to score his second try of the match under the posts. The next two tries were scored by Ray and Orr after a string of phases and slick passing, leaving the score at 26-25 to Winchester. With two minutes to go, another Petersfield attack going through many phases of play left Winchester short on the outside, with Pigott breaking through the covering tackles to score a converted try under the posts. The referee blew the final whistle to bring a hot afternoon’s play to a conclusion.

There has to be a special mention to Petersfield Player, Stuart Ireland, starting in his first senior game.

If anyone is interested in playing for Petersfield Rugby Football Club, please find further details on the PRFC website: http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/petersfield/